


burn them all

by tsunderestorm



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 12:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13787874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: Noctis will not be a pawn in the Astrals' plans.





	burn them all

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fun idea to explore. I would have loved an alternate ending to the main game where Noctis defied his fate (especially after seeing what the Astrals did to the first Chosen, I mean _seriously_?) and burned the world with Ardyn.

Ardyn had wanted revenge had wanted to bring his plan two thousand years in the making to fruition, to leave this new Chosen (blessed and beautiful though he was) bound by destiny and _broken_. Dishonored, desecrated, denied as _he_ had been. 

But this? Oh, _this_ was so much better.

This was Noctis, unbound by the duties of the throne, pushed to a tipping point. Unhinged, out of control, on a warpath. Ardyn’s learned that when he wants to be, the boy-king can be as cold as the ice he draws from the aquifers, as hungry and all-consuming as the fire he summons. There is power crackling through him like summer lightning, all the magic of the world, all of what the Astrals had given and never been able to take back coursing through him, empowering him, _changing him_.

Ardyn feels nothing but pride as he watches him, this creature he’s helped create. He is _splendid_ ; eyes glinting with a new passion as he blasts open the door of a temple built long ago, _sacrilege._ It is Bahamut’s and Ardyn revels in that fact while he kicks at a piece of rubble. Before him, Noctis’ flare spell destroys the altar and sends the swords suspended behind it clattering to the ground, a cacophony of steel on stone. There is something different about him, something wild and powerful, a sense of bloodlust, even; a need to have the ichor of the Six dripping from his fingertips and oh, it’s one Ardyn shares. He has tasted the indignation on Noctis’ tongue, has drank deeply of his disappointment and found it intoxicating, has claimed him in every way there is to claim a king: in body, mind, heart, _soul_. The boy hates him, of course...but he hates the astrals and their machinations that much more and in that way...it was too obscene to say. For the _Chosen_ to love the _Accursed?_ Oh, how the kings and queens of the Caelum line must be rolling in their graves, beating viciously against the walls of their marble mausoleums in anguish at the very _thought_ of their profane partnership.

Love is more powerful than hate, he’s heard, but...why not both? Why not take Noctis’ hatred for him; that beautiful, pitiable heartbreak when he’d hastened his beloved, idolized Lunafreya to her death, that misplaced resentment for his dear kingly father’s death, that pure, blinding rage when he’d kidnapped his friend with hair like sunbeams and encourage it, _nurture_ it? All the more satisfaction when that hatred turned to fear for his own future, to pity, to _love_ , to something twisted and powerful, ugly and beautiful all at once. The two of them against the wrongs of the past, the chessboard plan of the future, the astrals, the _world._ Oh, it’s positively delightful.

“What would you tell our dear friend Bahamut if he were before you right now?” Ardyn asks as he flattens against Noctis from behind, wrapping his arms around his lover’s body and clasping them, holding him tight to feel the power, the _passion_ burning him alive, kissing the side of his neck as Noctis blasts a statue of the astral’s splendid, spread wings to smithereens.

“I’m not a pawn,” Noctis says firmly, finally, resolute, hands clenched into fists to dispel the lightning that was coursing its way to the ends of his fingertips, satisfied with the message he’s sent for now. Petty as it is, but Ardyn supposes every resolution must start somewhere. “They won’t do to me what they did to you. I won’t die for their mistakes.”

Ardyn is above needing protection, far too old and cynical to be devoid of self-preservation and he’d given up begging the Astrals for help two thousand years ago, but it does please him to see Noctis so incensed about it, to see him take a tale that his family erased from the history books to heart in such a...unique way. Admittedly, it makes him close his eyes and _shudder_ to remember the way Noctis had stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief when he’d recounted his life’s story: his up-jumped younger brother’s manipulations, the scourge poisoning his blood, the daemons he invited into himself and later, the pain of torture as they’d attempted to expel them. The pain of being forgotten, of falling with clipped wings from a pedestal so high, of falling to his knees in front of the Crystal that had chosen him and still being told _no_.

“My _hero_ ,” he drawls sarcastically. Can’t have the boy knowing just how much it means to him, now, can he? “And tell me, o chosen king, what are you going to do?”

Noctis turns towards him with a look that makes Ardyn’s knees weak, makes his heart thump in his chest and aching arousal pool hot and insidious. For two thousand years, he’s wanted nothing but to break this boy and now he just wants to own him. Striding over to what’s left of the Draconian’s altar, he vows: “I’m going to burn them all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am [tsunderestorm](twitter.com/tsunderestorm) on twitter if you'd like to chat!


End file.
